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I've actually ended up as PL for most of my play time over the weekend, so haven't suggested TACGIR since I wouldn't have been able to split off (I'd step up as a TACGIR SL, but it will be a rocky learning experience).

When I was running the platoon during an Amerish alert on Sunday afternoon in the last 10-15 minutes we all (3 squads) split up and went to different bases in a desperate attempt to cap more territory. It actually turned out OK (we eventually settled on 2 bases and won both), but the confusing mess of comms, with orders, warnings and suggestions of where to go, was rather stressful.

I think in future when PLing I'll make the suggestion that if a squad wants to go to a different base, or if an SL wants to give their squad its own orders, then they should split comms too (either in a AB+CD setup or into TACGIR, I'm not fussy). In hindsight it should have been obvious and I've thought the same thing before, but in the moment I forgot.

I've PLed a reasonable number of times now (usually on lazy weekend afternoons) and never really asked for feedback. If anyone has any let me know.

It's worth pointing out that we would certainly have benefited from the TACGIR set up, but we weren't running that way initially because when I volunteered to take platoon lead there were about maybe 16 people online; not enough to justify splitting into squad comms for what was just a casual night's play.

Once the numbers had swollen to 40 in one channel then we could absolutely have used the split comms and pushed people into different groups, but we were into the dying minutes of the alert by that point (having battled in and around Mani Bio Lab for about an hour and a half of almost constant fighting) and I didn't want to waste time moving people around (and having to alt-tab out to sort out the binds, which would have meant looking up exactly how they should be set up etc.)

With a TACGIR radio set up I would have been much happier just telling each RO their objective and leaving it up to the SLs how they get it done, and have them coordinate things themselves when you have more than one squad taking a particular piece of ground - unless I was trying to coordinate all squads in the platoon together for something like a mass gal drop or similar.

I don't know how other people play or prefer to play, I like the split radio set up and I like a group of us in one channel depending on numbers - and I agree that TACGIR is not about being deadly serious about everything and never smiling because "this is war, boy and that's a serious business". Just different ways of playing the same game.

Firing four squads out in different directions can be a good thing but it's all very situational.

You summed up why I don't PL the regular platoon any more and wont really in the future - it's just a mess when you try to be effective and split etc. Some can handle it, I can't.

I think you as PL should decide to split to at least two channels (AB+CD etc)if you feel it is necessary Kiwi. You can also always suggest that someone chucks up a TACGIR squad as well. If you see me, Eso or Eclectic on, feel free to ask us to do that.

Given that we now have a fairly simple (if somewhat hard to find) guide on Mumble keybinds, and that they should now work in any of the PS2 channels, I would suggest anyone interested in being PL, SL or RO just go ahead and set up the keybinds if you haven't already. That way, if someone calls to move into separate channels then there should be a few people on who are ready to go with comms.

Just a quick report for my stint as PL last night, mainly because I'm after some advice.

Time: ~8:00pm - 10:00pm [can't remember the exact times] on the 30/04/13Overview: Took over as the platoon was transitioning from Amerish to Esamir nearly 1/2 way through an alert. Spent the alert fighting the TR in an attempt to stop them taking more of our territory. Then back to Amerish to defend our lock (which had nearly been lost).

What went wrong:
Trying to transition between continents so late in an alert left 1/2 of us stranded on Amerish for longer than should have been acceptable.
I tried to have everyone push for Apex Genetics but a large chunk of the platoon (already split between Amerish and Esamir) decided they didn't like that plan and went to Saerro Listening Post instead.
Towards the end of the alert (this is something I've found before when PLing alerts) deciding where to go gets hard and everyone has a different opinion they'd like to share which doesn't help the confusion.

What went right:
I believe that although the strategic decisions weren't great we did get some good fights in, especially once back on Amerish. As I left the lock on Amerish was looking more secure so that was good too.

Lessons to learn:
I need to be more assertive as a leader. Also, why do I never suggest splitting comms (to AB+CD)? That'd probably help with getting a word in edgeways.
Don't change continents if there is a queue. I really should just have reversed the decision to swap after seeing how long it would take some people to get in.
What is the best thing to do in the last 30 minutes of an alert? It's clear I don't know but if anyone has any advice then it'll be gratefully received.

What is the best thing to do in the last 30 minutes of an alert? It's clear I don't know but if anyone has any advice then it'll be gratefully received.

I believe that holding the major, keystone facilities and trying to branch out and take as much as possible of smaller territories, from whoever currently has the most territory. I'm also not sure it's a good idea to go big early on in an alert. Painting yourself up as the big dog in the fight will make you the obvious target and defending large territories takes lots of people. It might be clever to instead focus on holding a number of key facilities (Mao and Dahaka on northern Indar for instance) and then expand rapidly during the last rush, while the other two factions are busy fighting each other. Getting this sort of coordination across all of Vanu is going to be impossible, though...

What is the best thing to do in the last 30 minutes of an alert? It's clear I don't know but if anyone has any advice then it'll be gratefully received.

Originally Posted by EsotericReverie

I believe that holding the major, keystone facilities and trying to branch out and take as much as possible of smaller territories, from whoever currently has the most territory.

That's the main strategy in a nut shell. On Esamir, Saerro is one of those.

Originally Posted by EsotericReverie

Getting this sort of coordination across all of Vanu is going to be impossible, though...

Actually, during the last alerts, it is happening. Certain outfits are always together, some are coordinating with the rest.

On that note, perhaps this is the wrong thread.... Perhaps it is the appropriate, since here is where we discuss events of previous nights... But a lot of PLs ignore /leaderchat and TVA coordination. I am not talking about last night, but it is a worrying trend that is picking up over the last month.

Yes, /leaderchat can be a cesspool. It can be also be a great tool. If our voice is not heard in there, the voice of certain idiots dominates it. And people will work with them, resorting to an attitude "At least they are there". Yes, sometimes we may disagree with other outfits' actions and decisions. Be sure that sometimes they feel the same way about us. If we do not cooperate we cannot convince each other.

Lastly, if we see on the map, on a location where TVA outfits operate, numerical parity with the enemy, do not disregard it as "we are not needed there". Even if the allied outfits are slowly winning, they are losing the battle with time, and that is essential in an alert.

We are the largest Vanu outfit on the server. That comes with certain responsibilities.

And lastly, coordination is like sex: when it's bad, at least you get some, and when it's good, it's great!

When I logged on most folks were on Esamir and I landed in Amerish. I had a great time last night and I think LordKiwi did a really good job of getting us in fun fights whilst being useful in defending the lock. I think there were a few people who also logged in directly to Amerish which might have increased the perception of how much the move had split things up - busy continents are always going to be tricky for large outfits such as RPS.

As for last 30 minutes of the alert I think that's a big question (deserving of it's own thread?). I'm more optimistic than Eso about Vanu cooperation but maybe I'm just naive. I've had pretty good experiences using /leader to coordinate with the likes of ProdigalVS, Eurobob, Stanis, etc. In my experience BURP have prioritised fun fights over all else (be it cont locks or alerts) but that's probably not universal. The general premise of "don't go big too early" seems sound but I think views differ about which specific territories are worth going for. Eg Raven Landing and The Ascent are good to hold but that means if you don't have them early you're going to get stuck trying to cap the middle of Amerish. More discussion of alert strategy would be good.

Masterful leadership during tonight's alert ! Usually during alerts, the faction dominating at half-point is the one who will lose it all by the end. Tonight we managed to keep 46% of the territory, and RPS was no small part in it, with our fearless leaders sending us to last-minute defenses of endangered territories.

There are a few important ideas from tonight that we should keep in mind for future play, but right now I don't have the time to explain them correctly, so I'm just gonna give a watchful purple giraffe of awesome to our PL and SL of the nights and will write more tomorrow

Keep in mind that these forums are open for everyone, including the traitorous NC and TR. Try to stay away from 'playbook' style of posts/discussing the standard strategies and tactics we're using again and again. It's kinda shitty, but Vanu wouldn't be pleased.

Masterful leadership during tonight's alert ! Usually during alerts, the faction dominating at half-point is the one who will lose it all by the end. Tonight we managed to keep 46% of the territory, and RPS was no small part in it, with our fearless leaders sending us to last-minute defenses of endangered territories.

There are a few important ideas from tonight that we should keep in mind for future play, but right now I don't have the time to explain them correctly, so I'm just gonna give a watchful purple giraffe of awesome to our PL and SL of the nights and will write more tomorrow

Thank you for handing out the award.

In the future hough (and this is to remind everyone) can Purple Giraffes of Awesome be posted in the dedicated thread:

(This is an ongoing problem, and I don't want it to look like I'm singliing out this post, but it just reminded me. If they get spread around, they don't always get seen. Part of the point of these awards are that they are public shows of support and deserve attention).

Tonight fight was awesome, despite some coms problem, I had a lot of fun.

At the beginning, it was quite stressful to be squad lead in TACGIR/"serious operations" mode for the first time, but once the fight started for real, i was getting used to that, and enjoyed the experience. A big thanks to MrEclectic, who was a great RO, and helped me a lot. Without him, I would have probably messed up a lot more.

If anyone who was on my squad tonight has some feedback, I would be grateful. Both positive and negative feedback are useful, because negative feedback helps me being better.

As for me I have a few things to say about this :
GOOD :
- It was fun ! Both as a player, and a SL
- When I read about the RO role I didn't understand its purpose, but now I see how useful it is
- Pairing an experienced RO with a newbie SL is a very good idea.
- Obviously, the whole 2nd platoon creation on the go messed things up a bit. But I'm not blaming the PL, who did a great job on the whole and tried to smooth things up as much as possible for everyone else.

BAD :
- It takes quite a long time to set platoon, squads, and coms. I hope the PL (Esoteric, if I remember correctly) can give us some feedback on that, so we can smooth things up next time. If we want to use TACGIR more often, we need to be able to deploy it in less than 10 min.
- I had fun as SL, but I think for a beginner in the TACGIR system, the RO role is better than SL, because as SL you have to think about a lot of stuff at the same time, while getting use to the TACGIR system, whereas a RO is there to relay orders / ask questions to the PL. It's an important job, but I think it might be less stressful for a beginner, while allowing him to get some experience with his SL.
- I didn't get to use my whisper key. I don't know if I made a mistake while configurating it, but as far as I know it was working fine when we were settings things up (heard people, and I think people heard me too), but then once the operations started, nobody used that, or I couldn't hear it. Luckily RO / PL helped us coordinate, but there was at least one moment where I wished I could communicate with the Alpha SL and couldn't.

Fun fact : I'm not a native English speaker, and I've just discovered that when I'm under stress, my English gets a bit wonky . I know I did several grammar/vocabulary mistakes, I hope I didn't hurt too many ears with that

Strategic Thursday 2 May 2013

Started out with no-one really wanting to step up to PL, so I did it this time around. All things said, I think it went alright, but it certainly wasn't a smashing success. None of this was due to subpar performance from anyone in-game, it was a matter of a couple of nasty mix-ups, and just way too much fiddling and management of squads and platoons in the game and on Mumble. We'll get to the details.

The plan:
Was to hit Sungrey which looked to be a nice big fight, and to hold and defend against the TR zerg that I predicted would be incoming there shortly.

What actually happened:
Sungrey turned out to be a steamroller for us. As soon as we got there, the enemy presence just melted away. So, scratch The Plan.

I decided that we should try to push onwards along the north. Qaz pointed out to me that NC Arsenal was a good place for nice fights, and it was also possible to move there with ground vehicles. So we pushed over there. took it after 20 minutes or so of fierce fighting, and then held there for a few minutes. This was when I realised that one platoon would not be enough, so the group held on to NC Arsenal while the worst of the management mess happened.

We then somewhat haphazardly moved over towards North Grove and had one of the best fights I've seen for a while against several TRAM outfits. It was a toug fight for at least 30 minutes - probably more, I had totally lost track of time at this point, from having to juggle all the platoons and squads and people sitting in the wrong Mumble channels and everything. In the end RPS was victorius, which is as it should be, and we even had one PCG player commend us for our tenacity.

After this, a couple of squads held on to North Grove while three squads pushed for relieving a stalled offense on Ikanam Bio Lab, at which point I had to log off to take care of my tax declaration. (!) Eplekongen graciously took over platoon lead, and did an admirable job, as far as I can tell, so thanks for that!

Lessons learned:- Start out with two platoons and start up two squads in each, Alpha+Bravo and Echo+Foxtrot. This gives us two groups to work with, that are both big enough to handle a bit of resistance.We will always need two platoons now, we're that many playing Stratgir now! We should not need to spend much time as I did tonight getting Mumble set up and everyone into the right channels etc. Let's make sure we've got channels set up for two platoons, and start two platoons in-game before setting out.

- Make sure to get a real plan and briefing before moving out. People on the front ranks didn't quite feel like they knew what was going on in the beginning. We should take a few minutes to get things together, and make sure that everyone knows what we're doing, and what everyone's role is, if there is any such distinction.

- Remove some of the channel depth (DONE). The amount of channels in Mumble was a bit confusing, so I took away some of the levels and pulled all squad channels in from the parking channel. It should look a bit cleaner now. We could also possibly ask Nullkigan to remove the Vanu Sovereignty channel level, because that seems a bit superfluous at the moment.

- MAX crashes: we should not crash all through one door or we will be wiped out. We need to split up targets by squads and spread out a bit more.

- When setting out for the next objective, we would benefit from taking a bit more time to get things settled, come up with a plan and make sure everyone in the squad knows what we're going to do, and what their role in the whole thing is going to be. We often rush to our deaths when we could have taken 20 seconds to sort out a rough plan of action that would likely be much more successful.

- Need better mentoring procedures for new leaders. We had a couple of new leaders on tonight. They did a great job, but would really need someone to step up and give them a helping hand. It is easy to get completely overwhelmed by the amount of things going on.

- Need some more training/walkthroughs on comms (especially SL-to-SL coordination). SL-to-SL coordination seems to hardly have been used at all tonight, which is a real shame, because that is one of the major strengths of our comms system. I, or whoever else is platoon leading, need to be very clear up-front about the fact that SLs can communicate with each other! We should announce this before setting out, and remind people a few times during the night, until this becomes second nature.

- The PL-RO-SL role split worked like clockwork tonight, at least from my perspective as PL over-burdened by management tasks. This seems to have become second nature for us now, though we stumbled in the beginning, so I have hopes for the SL-to-SL comms to work out nicely soon enough, too. I'd like to see SLs and ROs of the night comment on this aspect of play, though.

- EDIT: Oh, and ROs often need to report in more often. Some were really good at this, some need to give quick info on what the squad is up to a bit more often. I'm generally pleased, we have certainly made excellent progress lately, but I'd like a bit more proactivity still. Keep up the good work, and do even better next time!

Last edited by EsotericReverie; 02-05-2013 at 10:54 PM.
Reason: Added a thing at the end.

Ksempac, you did an excellent job! I find SLing the way I want to be led myself, to be very very hard. I constantly miss things, get my squad spread out all over the place and lose track of my objectives. Thankfully, I usually get to have very competent ROs with me to remind me where I should be trying to go!

So, thanks for stepping up tonight, I've heard only good things about your performance. Keep it up!

Also, thanks for the feedback! It's very helpful. You'll notice that the comms issue was discussed during the debriefing and a proposed solution implemented until next time. (I don't remember you being on at the debrief...)

It's probably only me, but I prefer being both squad lead and RO at the same time. But maybe that's only because the squads I've been in have been of the very quiet type. Especially now the squad is muted when ROs speak.

Ksempac, you did an excellent job! I find SLing the way I want to be led myself, to be very very hard. I constantly miss things, get my squad spread out all over the place and lose track of my objectives. Thankfully, I usually get to have very competent ROs with me to remind me where I should be trying to go!

So, thanks for stepping up tonight, I've heard only good things about your performance. Keep it up!

Also, thanks for the feedback! It's very helpful. You'll notice that the comms issue was discussed during the debriefing and a proposed solution implemented until next time. (I don't remember you being on at the debrief...)

Thanks for the kind words

I'm sad to have missed the debrief. I didn't there would be one. I had to left the game around 11pm CET, but if i had known that there would soon be a debrief, i would have stayed on Mumble at least, because i went to bed only at 12pm.

It's probably only me, but I prefer being both squad lead and RO at the same time. But maybe that's only because the squads I've been in have been of the very quiet type. Especially now the squad is muted when ROs speak.

Actually I prefer rolling like that most of the time. The only thing is that I make at least a couple of times the error of "whispering" when I need to "shout" and vice versa

Originally Posted by EsotericReverie

And Boris, the muting of squads when ROs speak is probably not really necessary, and most people seem to dislike it, so we'll likely not roll with that in the future.

It was quite uncomfortable for the rest of the squad, and ROs cannot listen to SLs, which is kind of a big deal.